Licensed version of Tengen Pacman on NES?

[Troglodyte]

Hello,
I recently won a video game auction where one of the games featured was a licensed version of Pacman by Tengen for the NES. The cart is grey and it even has the licensed by Nintendo insignia on it.

I was not aware that this version of Pacman even existed. I assumed that the only versions of it that were released were the standard unlicensed black Tengen cart and the fully licensed Nintendo version of Pacman (which I also own).

Can anyone shed some light on this?
And does anyone know how rare this release is?

UPDATE: Figures, I just found someone else who asked this very question in these forums in the past. Here:
http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?p=116594

[mrmark0673]

That thread has some "eh" info in there. There are 3 versions for the NES:

Tengen Pac Man (Licensed)
Tengen Pac Man (Unlicensed)
Namco Pac Man

The Namco version is easily the rarest (and has the coolest box art IMO) and is pretty tough to track down CIB. I hope that helps!

[Tupin]

As for rarity, yes, the Namco version is the rarest. But it's not the best version, the Tengen versions have a lot more options.

[GarrettCRW]

As for rarity, yes, the Namco version is the rarest. But it's not the best version, the Tengen versions have a lot more options.

Tengen Ms. Pac-Man (which was only released as an unlicensed title) has more options, but all three NES Pac-Mans are all essentially the same game, having been localized versions of Namco's Famicom (and, later, Famicom Disk System) port of Pac-Man.